Edwin Diaz Agrees to Terms with Dodgers: Reports
ORLANDO, Fla. (Dec. 9) —Free agent closer Edwin Diaz, the most coveted free-agent reliever, has agreed to terms with the Los Angeles Dodgers in a surprise move. According to a report by The Athletic, the terms are three years, $69 million. The announcement was one of two Tuesday morning announcements within minutes of each other that has shaken up the 2025 Baseball Winter Meetings.
Diaz leaves the New York Mets, with whom he spent seven seasons, for the back-to-back World Series champion Dodgers. The seven seasons include the 2023 season, which he missed in entirety due to a knee injury. This brings the 2025 Trevor Hoffman Award winner and 2025 Sport Relay NL Closer of the Year to a team whose glaring weakness this past season was closer after the struggles of Tanner Scott.
What the Dodgers Get in Diaz
If the Dodgers already had something in the works, they kept it at a military-grade secret. On Monday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expressed confidence in Scott, entering the second year of a four-year/$72 million deal, during his scheduled press conference. He called 2025 “an outlier year” and indicated Scott had more physical ailments than the public knew about. However, he ended that answer with, “But, yeah, I think that getting a high-leverage reliever is never a bad thing.”
“High-leverage” is an understatement. After an above-average 2024 season — his first back from the injury — Diaz had a stellar 2025. Across 62 games and 66 1/3 innings, Diaz had 54 scoreless outings (ER only, 87.1%). This was not only 14.9 percentage points better than the NL average but also marked an 11.2 percentage-point improvement from 2024. Additionally, he struck out 98 of the 258 batters he faced, walked 21, and yielded four homers. This gave him a 38.0 K%, 8.1 BB%, 29.8 K–BB%, and 1.6 HR%. For reference, the NL averages were 21.9 K%, 8.3 BB%, 13.6 K–BB%, and 3.0 HR%. Diaz also had 35 Goose Eggs vs three Broken Eggs, an 11.7 GE/BE ratio (NL average: 3.1). He converted 28 saves in 31 chances (90%), well above the NL average of 64%. Finally, his 0.859 WHIP was over 400 points better than the 1.296 NL average.
Looking Ahead
Diaz’s $23 million average annual value (AAV) is nearly $5 million better than what Spotrac.com predicted ($18.338 million). His signing leaves Robert Suarez (NL #2), Shawn Armstrong (AL #2), Kenley Jansen (AL #8), Kyle Finnegan (AL #11), and Pete Fairbanks (AL #12) as the free-agent closers still available.
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